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Remember when book club fights were just about the book?
Back in my old club in Chicago around 2015, our biggest debate was if a character was right to leave her husband. It was about the story. Now, in my current group, half the talk is about the author's tweets from 2012 or if a side character is 'problematic.' The shift happened over maybe five years. We used to dig into the text itself, but now someone always brings up stuff from online. It changed because social media made the author's life part of the book for a lot of people. I miss just talking about what's on the page. Does your group still focus on the story, or has it changed too?
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julia_carter6120d ago
Morgan.jason is right about becoming detectives. We pulled apart a mystery novel last month, but spent more time looking up if the writer had ever said something dumb in an interview than on the plot holes. It's like the book isn't allowed to just be a book anymore. You need a full history of the person who wrote it before you can even say if you liked the story. The whole thing feels like homework now.
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You said it changed because social media made the author's life part of the book. That's exactly it. I see this everywhere now, not just book clubs. We can't just talk about a movie or a song on its own. We have to have the full background check on who made it first. It feels like we're all part-time detectives instead of just enjoying the story. The work itself gets lost in the noise. My group is the same, and it makes me want to talk about books less.
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ross.christopher20d ago
Ugh, tell me about it. Last week I spent twenty minutes explaining why an author's old tweets shouldn't ruin a perfectly good ending for me, and I sounded like a lawyer giving a closing argument. I just wanted to say the villain was cool, lol.
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